Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/45

 across the Ocean. Europe was covered with a network of wires, and so was America—to unite these two great systems of communication would be a feat unparalleled in the annals of Science.

This wondrous feat has at last been accomplished, and the two great Continents are now connected by a cable which lies at the bottom of the Atlantic. At Man's bidding the Amber Spirit speeds along this tremendous cable, and having registered a single letter at its further end, finds his way back to the battery through the pathless deep. Again and again he makes this extraordinary circuit, until every letter in his despatch has been registered; so that, in spelling a word of one syllable, he has to perform a series of journeys which together far exceed the length of Puck's famous girdle.

The Amber Spirit has had other duties imposed upon him besides those of a courier.

He has been taught to measure time with great accuracy, an accomplishment which scarcely seems to harmonize with his astonishing fleetness. Measuring time must be a tedious occupation to one accustomed to annihilate it; nevertheless, clocks are moved by our versatile Spirit, which have neither weights nor springs, and which will go for ever without winding.

We have seen how needles may be moved and bells rung; let us now consider how a pendulum may be set in motion. A battery is connected with a pendulum of peculiar construction, its bob being